Death of Tomás Mac Giolla

[Catalpa]

This is a sad day.

Ireland has today lost one of its foremost leaders. A former leader of Sinn Féin, he had a great concern for the least well off, for equality, and brought labour values to everything he did. His contributions to his party were majo, if ultimately his political career was to end in frustration, it was not for lack of effort, or good values, on his part. He was further more a man of the utmost decency and high integrity.

I wish his family and all who mourn his passing all condolances at this difficult and sad time for them.

Yes factual and that is all very well at a personal level

- but you do know that he and his Party were your bitter (and sometimes bloody) enemies for decades?

PSF have pretty well adopted (or at least pay lip service to) nearly all that he advocated?

Why then didn't you listen to him back in 1969 and save yourselves (and others)all that bother B4 ending up in the same boat?

[corelli]

Right. I have had to remove two rather nasty posts in this thread. RIP threads are no place for same. Have a little common decency. I won't be saying it again.

[The_Big_Fellow]

I disagree profoundly with the direction he took, I think it was an awful mistake. I think that he represented the type of revolutionary socialist that comes from a well to do back ground that loses touch in an idealogical frenzy. I have to admire his dedication. He worked in a very secure and good paying job in a time when there was no jobs, yet still became active in the Republican movement. Could one honestly imagine a FF/FG politician doing likewise.

May God have mercy on him.

[Podolski1.5]

Thanks to all those paying tribute to Tomás, especially those with whom there would be political differences. I think it was a mark of the man that he was respected by people from across the political spectrum.

I must comment also on the poor coverage of his death on RTÉ - I had to wait 45 minutes before his passing was mentioned on the Six-One news tonight. Tomás may have been out of Dáil Éireann a long time but far more prominence has been given to the passing of people with much less of a legacy.

[The_Big_Fellow]

TBH I found his analysis of National Irish Politics to be seriously flawed pretty well from when I first heard of him.

He used to be a TD for Dublin West but IIRC his base was Lucan/Palmerston on the other side of the Liffey to Blanch.

While he was a National figure at his height he came to prominence relatively late in life and was from a reasonably prosperous background.

I think at one stage his home was in North Avenue, Mount Merrion from where he planned to bring about a Workers Republic.

He was moderately successful in building up a core vote for his brand of politics in the 1980s when things were pretty bad economically

- but it all fell apart for him when the Soviet Union collapsed and his comrades at home decided they needed a facelift.

It should be quite interesting to read what will now emerge in the wake of his demise as he certainly had an interesting career.

I think I met him once at a local meeting and he was a decent enough skin.

At least unlike so many other of our politicians he stuck with his beliefs right to the end.

A man with a good heart and a noble commitment to social justice in our Country

- but I could not agree with analysis of the National Question.

RIP Mr McGiolla

Sums up a lot of views i heard today. Well put Catalpa. I agree regarding the National Question. I feel that the Workers party put too much focus on an idealogical obsession against what it would consider Nationalism.

[Verhofstadt]

I am greatly saddened to hear about the death of Tom Gill.
My father and Gill shared a flat with two others as they worked their way through a B.Comm degree in the years immediately after the war. While they were at UCD, my father saw a notice giving details of a talk being given by the author Sean Og O'Tuama about, primarily, the Irish language. My father wanted to hear what O'Tuama had to say on the subject and persuaded a very reluctant Gill to join him since at the time Gill had not the slightest interest in the Irish language. In the event, my father was somewhat undewhelmed at what O'Tuama had to say. Gill, on the other hand, sat transfixed through the talk and his political development and interest in Irish got a massive boost on that night and it basically kick-started his interest in the political path he followed for decades afterwards.
In time, he became godfather to my brother. We saw less and less of him over the years, yet when he and my father met, it always seemed like they saw each other the day before and were merely continuing a conversation. My father never shared Tom's politics. But they were always friends.
In a previous employment, I had occasion to be in Leinster House from time to time and it gave me great pleasure to shake the mans hand on his first day in the Dail. If there was ever a man who deserved to spend a lot more time there than he did, it was Tom.

I will always remember him as a friend of my father, a friend to my family and one of the most decent men it has been my pleasure to know.

Tom, RIP.

Nice post Pauli.

[The_Big_Fellow]

I am greatly saddened to hear about the death of Tom Gill.
My father and Gill shared a flat with two others as they worked their way through a B.Comm degree in the years immediately after the war. While they were at UCD, my father saw a notice giving details of a talk being given by the author Sean Og O'Tuama about, primarily, the Irish language. My father wanted to hear what O'Tuama had to say on the subject and persuaded a very reluctant Gill to join him since at the time Gill had not the slightest interest in the Irish language. In the event, my father was somewhat undewhelmed at what O'Tuama had to say. Gill, on the other hand, sat transfixed through the talk and his political development and interest in Irish got a massive boost on that night and it basically kick-started his interest in the political path he followed for decades afterwards.
In time, he became godfather to my brother. We saw less and less of him over the years, yet when he and my father met, it always seemed like they saw each other the day before and were merely continuing a conversation. My father never shared Tom's politics. But they were always friends.
In a previous employment, I had occasion to be in Leinster House from time to time and it gave me great pleasure to shake the mans hand on his first day in the Dail. If there was ever a man who deserved to spend a lot more time there than he did, it was Tom.

I will always remember him as a friend of my father, a friend to my family and one of the most decent men it has been my pleasure to know.

Tom, RIP.

Lovely post.

[biffo50]

God rest him. Whether you agreed or disagreed with him, he was sincere.

[Simply]

It should be quite interesting to read what will now emerge in the wake of his demise as he certainly had an interesting career.

Indeed.'...But parliamentary politics was only ever one small part of his activism, only ever one front in his struggle for socialism. This is not the time for a full account of his career...'

RIP

[Gordon Freeman]

Right. I have had to remove two rather nasty posts in this thread. RIP threads are no place for same. Have a little common decency. I won't be saying it again.

Is this a political discussion site, or a love-in?

Whatever about his personal convictions, I detested the Workers' Party. We may never be 100% certain to what extent was Mac Giolla's involvement in the seamier side of the Workers' Party project (compared to the activities of that viper, Eoghan Harris). I would acknowledge he was very influential in his day, as was Cathal Goulding. They were both betrayed by those ambitious Young Turks, Pat Rabbitte and Éamonn Gillmore, who created a political vehicle for themselves to assist their entry into yet another organization: Labour. I would consider much of his life's work to have been a failure: no socialist, United Ireland and the downfall of Soviet Communism. Instead, his movement sundered and were gobbled up by the Labour party/Irish Times (or, was it the other way around?)

He was a useful stick for the British, if you'll pardon the pun, to beat Republicans with.